Washington - Reports of a flash of light that streaked
across the sky over the US East Coast appeared to be a "single meteor event,"
the US space agency said late on Friday.

Residents from New York City to
Washington and beyond lit up social media with surprise.

"Judging from the brightness, we're dealing with
something as bright as the full moon," Bill Cooke of Nasa's Meteoroid
Environmental Office said. "We basically have [had] a boulder enter the
atmosphere over the northeast."

Cooke said the meteor was widely seen, with more than 350
reports on the website of the American Meteor Society alone.

The sky flash was spotted as far south as Florida and as far
north as New England, the newspaper reported.

Matt Moore, a news editor with The Associated Press, said he
was standing in line for a concert in Philadelphia around dusk when he saw
"a brilliant flash moving across the sky at a very brisk pace... and
utterly silent."

"It was clearly high up in the atmosphere," he
said. "But from the way it appeared, it looked like a plane preparing to
land at the airport."

Moore said the flash was visible to him for about two to
three seconds, and then it was gone. He described it as having a
"spherical shape and yellowish and you could tell it was burning, with the
trail that it left behind."

Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at Philadelphia's Franklin
Institute, agreed that the sightings had all the hallmarks of a "fireball".

Pitts said this one got more attention because it happened
on a Friday evening - and because Twitter has provided a way for people to
share information on sightings.

He said what people likely saw was one meteor - or
"space rock" - that may have been the size of a volleyball and fell
fairly far down into the Earth's atmosphere. He likened it to a stone skipping
across the water - getting "a nice long burn out of it."

Pitts said experts "can't be 100% certain of what it
was, unless it actually fell to the ground and we could actually track the
trajectory."

But he said the descriptions by so many people are
"absolutely consistent" with those of a meteor.

24.com publishes all comments posted on articles provided that they adhere to our Comments Policy. Should you wish to report a comment for editorial review, please do so by clicking the 'Report Comment' button to the right of each comment.

Tell us a bit about yourself:

Saving your profile

Settings

News24 allows you to edit the display of certain components based on a location.
If you wish to personalise the page based on your preferences, please select a
location for each component and click "Submit" in order for the changes to
take affect.

Your Location*

Weather*

Always remember my setting

Saving your settings

Facebook Sign-In

Hi News addict,

Join the News24 Community to be involved in breaking the news.

Log in with Facebook to comment and personalise news, weather and listings.